Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars

File:Head to head clowns.jpg

Bring on the clowns!

Occasionally, Wikipedians lose their minds and get into edit wars over the most petty things. This is to document that phenomenon. Please note: edit warring itself is lame. This page is dedicated to edit wars with lame or silly causes, not to exhaustively document all the real and contentious edit wars.

Ethnic feuds

(see also Gdanzig below)

Foustanella

Who first donned a frilly skirt and threatened to kill anyone who questioned his manhood over it? Was he Albanian or Greek? If Albanian, Gheg or Tosk? Thankfully, none of the modern day warriors on this topic have access to real weapons (we hope!)

Category:Hong Kong literature

Edit war over whether the category should be subcategorized under or merely linked to Category:Chinese literature. Resulted in repeated multiple reverts that led to violation of the three revert rule.

Florina and other towns in Macedonia (Greece)

Edit war about whether the alternative name Lerin is Macedonian, Bulgarian, or south Slavic (which covers both Macedonian and Bulgarian).

Names

Gdańzig

Edit wars have been occurring for most of Wikipedia's history with regards to the exact name of this Polish German Prussian Eastern Central Northern European Baltic Baltijas city.

Richard Neustadt

Two months of edit war on whether the page should say "[[Harry S Truman|President Truman]]" or "President [[Harry S Truman]]" (plus the same with several other presidents).

Fossil fuel for reciprocating piston engines equipped with spark plugs

Should this substance be called gasoline or petrol? See the talk page for a debate about the total number of English speakers in the world, the relative utility of search engines and claims that UK-wikipedians are set to re-establish the British empire by moving pages to British spellings and that Americans who want "gasoline" are being their usual nationalistic/culturally imperialistic selves. Gasoline has been settled on for now, only because it was the original title, but the fallout has yet to settle.

Land making up Tsushima subprefecture

Is it an island or a group of islands? Does it matter if there are islets surrounding what people call an island? Can we still consider it an island if the navy blasted a shipping channel in the middle of it? Maybe the Japanese name should be used to decide. Or possibly the English term used to refer to it by the government of Japan. Or is it just a case of one side thinking about the landmass in the sea (e.g. Great Britain) while the other the island as a political entity (e.g. United Kingdom) and couldn't actually agree on what the article is actually about??

Missing sun motif

Is it a collection of myths or a motif? Should "sun" be capitalized or not? What about "underworld"? Edit warring here over these and other weighty issues have involved four editors and most of the article's history.

Devil's Lake (North Dakota)

Shockingly, there are multiple locations in the United States with the name "Devil's Lake." A very heated war broke out here regarding which one should be featured, whether a disambig page was needed, even over the usage of the apostrophe- eventually literally degenerating into "my lake is better than yours!"

File:QueenSabrina.jpg

We are not easily amused, but...

Her Late Majesty

Must a queen deceased for over a century still be styled here “Her Majesty”, an epithet conventionally reserved for the current monarch? This weighty dispute (pale reflection of warring here), filling talk pages and edit histories, has spilled over into other British monarchs, other royals and titleholders, several countries having or having had a monarchy, claimants and other royal pretensions, and even hundreds of holders of the papacy, where popes centuries dead are endorsed as “His Holiness” here, losing and regaining the endorsement with blinks of eyes. Ongoing debates deal with the format of dates, and the used or unused, existing or non-existent surnames family names house names former fiefs (some inherited names, but very few are sure what they precisely are) of monarchs and relatively unfamiliar variants of those (as well as the putative name of the horse of her late majesty's husband's family), with most edits being extremely trivial. Involved parties vouch for only aiming at accuracy, and certainly some argumentation goes deeper than believed humanly possible. This even created an edit war over whether it could be mentioned here. A truce, seemingly imposed by a Royal intervention that dragged in innocent bystander Prince Michael of Kent, Scottish accents and snail slime, appears to be holding, though occasionally some new fallout is being generated.

"local girl makes good"

Pet views on royalty again, mostly same parties warring - but aligned contrariwise. Could an American woman who made an ex-king her catch, keep here the title she was bestowed by the marriage, or is the begrudging native "she stole our king" attitude a reason sufficient to revert her posthumously back to her second husband's surname, i.e Wallis Simpson. See how contrary POVs enter the debate, persons who had wanted "majesties" and "highnesses" used in each minor royal's articles going to strip an American girl of her only nobility title, and see chivalrous Americans fighting to metaphorical death in defense of a countrywoman's entitlement. An interesting point has been whether it is fatal or not that she married her Duke after his abdication, and how all that relates to various Austrian, Russian, Romanian etc losses of monarchies, as well as to her sisters-in-law and also to Fergie.

Speedy deletion criteria

While not really an ongoing edit war, an interesting point of lameness is the fact that a significant number of edits to WP:CSD consist of changing the name in the example of attack pages, e.g. this edit.

William of Orange

was the name of one King of England and also of some totally obscure minor characters in the mists of history — or was it actually the name of two important and well-known Protestant Heads of State, etc? That became the object of a dispute over a redirect. This vital question divided a bunch of eminent readers of history and led to a revert war that alternated the redirect almost every hour. Casual viewers were holding their breath when coming to check what was the current position of that weathervane. As the name's usage in English-speaking cultures was perceived to be the determining factor, there were attempts to almost hand-count English-speakers in New Zealand, South Africa, etc. — all apparently using the hallowed name in certain way. Extensive and in-depth arguments in several talk pages and usertalk pages included claims of original primary authorship of a redirect as well as accusations of nationalistic POV, filibustering and "using all the tricks in the box." This teaches us some things about disambiguation pages and potential problems surrounding even such tools. A formal poll resulted in votes 9-5 in favor of renaming the disambiguation page as simply William of Orange, and most fallout is being settled.

Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine

has the (mis)fortune of having a Russian name that clearly is internationally more widely known than the Ukrainian name. The best efforts of Ukraine's government to legislate what is the right version of their capital's name in the English-speaking world led only to edit and revert wars in Wikipedia, as some editors did not heed the country's own government, insisting that the best-known version should be used, and in the end they won. Since it was unthinkable that any of the warring camps were wrong in their contentions, it must have been the NPOV policy that was faulty.

Avengers (comics)

Should there be a separate page for New Avengers (comics)? Is the name of the team now the New Avengers or is it just a new Avengers? Is it a new comic entirely or just a continuation of the old one? Following a positive merge vote, a series of reverts occurs when an editor "merges" the two by simply pasting the merged information into the article, creating two articles in one. The slow nature of the revert war means that, technically, nobody violates WP:3RR, and requests for help from other admins go unheeded because, well, it's lame. After a series of exchanges on the talk page questioning people's command of English as well as their sanity, the issue appears to have been settled.

C Sharp

In the name of the programming language C#, is that # thing after the C a number sign or the musical sharp symbol? What should the wrongname template say? Some argue that a Microsoft FAQ supports the sharp symbol, while others argue that the ECMA standard promotes the # symbol and that it has better browser support. Some propose using # as a superscript (C^#), which nobody likes. Editors revert each other repeatedly, some refusing to discuss the issue on the talk page. Will there ever be an answer?

İstanbul

Is it Istanbul or İstanbul? A few editors make nuclear war over a small speck above the I, bringing new meaning to the word iota.

Hanover 96

one n or two n's? Filling up many talk pages and much time.

Copyrights

Hitler Has Only Got One Ball

Can anonymously written folk songs be copyrighted? What if the anonymous author sues Wikipedia? Or his son? Such a serious controversy on such a serious article can only be settled by a soul-scarring delving into international copyright law, which fails to convince an obstinately irascible user out to defame Wikipedia's credibility.

Dates

Death By Stereo

Was this band officially formed in 1996 or 1998?

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Was it released in 1988, or '89? Was it released straight to video before hitting the theaters? If so, does that count?

Ned's Atomic Dustbin

Was their independent EP The Ingredients released in 1989 or 1990?

Nancy Reagan

Was she born in 1921? Or 1923? After days of editing, does anyone really care THAT much? Woman is old. As a bonus, someone later edited this page to state he was right after all.

Jennifer Lopez

Born in 1969 or 1970? Even after a detailed explanation in the age fabrication article for 1969 was provided, many were still sure it was 1970.

Jamie Lynn Spears

Was she born in 1991 or 1992? After years of being born in 1991, her publicist slips up and accidentally mentions she is 13 years old (in 2005), and all hell breaks loose. (Corrected to 1991)

Ann Coulter

Edit war over whether she was born in 1961 or 1963, settled at 1961 after some damning evidence was found.

Punctuation

FOX News

One user rewrites part of a paragraph; another user reverts because of three commas placed outside quotation marks; and a revert war ensues.

Template:Wikipedialang

Edit war involving three sysops over whether there should be commas in "10000" and "1000." Leads to a blocking and liberal use of the rollback button.

Frequent date of birth to death punctuation

Frequent edit wars over whether there are spaces between the dash when writing a person's date of birth and death.
Example (January 24, 1943 – August 9, 1969) or (January 24, 1943–August 9, 1969). Related edit war over whether the month or the date comes first, i.e. 1 July or July 1, despite the fact that display preferences can be set to provide for either regardless of the wikicode placing.

Berwick-upon-Tweed

A slow-moving edit war that centred over the use of ... an exclamation mark. As User:Ulayiti exclaimed on the talkpage, "Come on guys, you can't actually be having an edit war over one tiny exclamation point!"

Spelling

Aluminium

The non-North-American English-speaking world spells it aluminium with two letter "i"'s, the official IUPAC spelling is aluminium also with two letter "i"'s, and that's where the article is - with two letter "i"'s. There are occasional futile attempts to put the word back to aluminum, which only has one letter "i" in it. See here and here for the gory historical details.

Potato chips

Should potato chips be flavored or flavoured? What is the provenance of the potato chip, America or Ireland? Four-user revert war on these important issues results in the page getting protected and listed on RfC. As a compromise, the chips become seasoned.

Avril Lavigne

Was her radio hit from her debut album, Let Go, spelled "I'm With You", or was it spelled "I'm with You"? Intense edit warring ensued, and continues, over this contentious matter. Many personal attacks and a request for page protection were also included.

Orange (colour)

A cut-and-paste move to the American spelling "color". A move back, and statements that Canada, Australia, and the rest of the colour-spelling world didn't matter because the United States spelled it color.

Sysop Wars

User:The Trolls of Navarone

Two sysops in a revert war over the user page of a banned sockpuppet of hard-banned user:142. Then, a month later, a user takes one of them to Quickpolls over the revert war.

Main Page

What April Fool's jokes should be mentioned on the Main Page, if any? This protected page, editable only by admins, normally goes unedited for days—all content is included from templates, so there is no need to edit the Main Page directly. On April 1, 2005, it racks up more than 60 revisions of varying seriousness before finally being reverted to a days-old version. This does not even include all revisions of the templates the Main Page includes.

Templates

John Vanbrugh

Should Template:Infobox Biography be used in this article? Is it ugly or not? Are the place and date of his birth and death important enough to be highlighted in a big box? Does a box which repeats information that is already in the article offer any substantial advantage? Do the wishes of those who wrote most of this featured article count for anything? Multi-sided edit war over these issues.

Template:User Aspie

Should the font size for this userbox be 10pt or 14pt? 3rr violations, page protection, and vitriol spilling onto multiple talk pages ensue. Nobody is surprised.

Template:User admins ignoring policy

A userbox reading "This user is pissed about admins ignoring policy." Surprisingly enough, the userbox was speedy deleted by admins... ignoring policy. See the TfD page.

Pictures

Feces

Revert wars, alleged sock-puppetry, and page protection: should the article on feces include this picture of a large human turd? As of early July 2005, the discussion on this issue alone had reached 12,900 words.

Invisible Pink Unicorn

Edit war over what pictures (if any) to include of a parody deity, and how to caption them.

Cat

34 reverts in just over an hour. The pressing issues: Should one unremarkable photo be included? Is the cat depicted really smiling? Both users were blocked for 30 seconds—"a suitably lame block for a remarkably lame edit war"—after protection of the page had halted the reverts. One user resumed after protection was lifted the next day, leading to further 12 reverts over the same photograph. Another page protection put a stop to the lameness. As it ended, the photo was deleted for not having any copyright status.

Missionary position

A revert war between two versions of the line drawn illustration, one incorporating a teddy bear and one without. Some people claimed the bear was distracting, or believed it implied the woman to be under age. Other people found the bear adding atmosphere since the couple is ignoring it.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Which picture should top the article: "Old style" Sonic or 3D Sonic? After a some discussion, including an image-by-image vote on every image on the page, consensus settled on both.

JSTOR

Should the logo go on the left of the article or on the right?

Red hair

"Should we have animals?" "Should we have a picture of this girl or another one?" "Should we have a picture of someone's principal?" "Should we exclude dye jobs?"

Talkpage Wars

Homosexuality in Singapore

Probably the first instance of revert-warring on an article talkpage, where one editor accused another of using the talkpage as an alternative soapbox for a POV agenda. The accused editor first tried to insert a list of unpredictable predictions, then when that didn't work, transferred it to the talkpage, ostensibly for "discussion" when in fact none took place. That section was reverted back and forth numerous times, since no statute seems to govern behaviour in talkpages.

User talk:66.167.235.16

User:Arminius left the Template:test message on the anonymous user's talk page. The anonymous user removed the test message. A three hour, 25-edit war followed over whether or not the talk page should include such inflammatory messages as {{test}} and welcome notices. Other admins were called in to look at the situation, and, after careful analysis and fact-checking, it was determined to be a very lame edit war indeed.

Wording

Urban75

Is Urban75 a "left leaning" or "liberal leaning" site? A two-month argument on this results in hundreds of reverts, userpage vandalism, sockpuppetry & two separate VfDs

Weblog

Is a blog an application or is it the product of an application? See page for Weblog

Europe

Revert war over whether Europe is commonly considered a continent or not.

Exploding whale

Is the phrase "the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds" worthy of inclusion? Was placed on WP:RFC at one point.

Katie Couric

Is she an "entertainer" or a "journalist?" Is it necessary to mention that she "annoyingly" drops the "g" at the end of words (e.g. "morneen")?

Guinea pig

Slow, simmering edit war between anons as to whether guinea pigs had no need to jump and climb in the natural environment in which they were created, or in the natural environment in which they evolved.

Wikipedia:Requests for comment

What is the correct wording to indicate that an RfC may be followed by an arbitration request? Is it "Although not formally required before proceeding to arbitration, many RfCs are be steps towards it", or is it "Many, though by no means all, arbitration cases are preceded by a user-conduct RFC"? Three-way revert war that has lasted two weeks and 50+ edits so far.

John Kerry

An edit war over John Kerry's first Purple Heart award in Vietnam. Was it just a wound or a "minor wound"? Also whether wound itself should be wikilinked and whether or not Kerry's family background should be left in the article. The wound issue ended with a RfAR and an editor being banned from editing the article.

Cranky Kong

Was Cranky Kong the original Donkey Kong? Could it be the character in Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 games is actually his son? Or perhaps his grandson? Should we trust offhand comments made by the character? Does being licensed by Nintendo make Rareware publications "official"? How official is the "Nintendo Seal of Quality"? Why am I asking these questions? Because to some people, the answers are a matter of life and death.

Baltimore

Is the city's climate temperate, subtropical, or continental? Does it snow there rarely or almost never? How often does it get below freezing? And just what are the average monthly high and low temperatures? These seemingly easily verifiable facts have been the subject of a slow-motion edit war for months.

Drow

Should Dungeons and Dragons be mentioned before Drow or after Drow?

Angels and Airwaves

More than 40 reverts in one hours by two editors. The point of contention? Whether "Angels and Airwaves" is a band or "Angels and Airwaves" are a band. ALL-CAPS edit summaries laced with profanity and death threats liberally employed by one side. Stopped only after admin intervention, but resumed again two minutes after the 3RR block expired. Both get blocked for seven days, and one of them gets his block extended to eight days after stating he doesn't care as long as the other side gets a block of same length. The other side keeps his seven-day block.

Lists

GNAA

Should the infamous Gay Nigger Association of America be at the top of this irrelevant disambiguation page? The ongoing dispute leads to the page being protected and one administrator being blocked for WP:3RR.

List of multiracial people

Are people who are White and Multiethnic considered Multiracial?

Miscellaneous lameness

David Quinn (Actor)

Over 100 reverts, among a handful of users. Over half appear to belong to the same person/group of persons.

Augusto Pinochet

A rare violation of the 50RR, as two users manage to rack up reverts at a speed exceeding one a minute.

Michael Moore

He was born in Davison, Michigan, a suburb of Flint, Michigan. He often says he's from Flint. Is that correct?

Jennifer Aniston

Is she American or American-born?

Daniel Brandt

He hates Wikipedia and rants about it on his webpage. And because Wikipedia is against him a Wikipedia admin has made a page about him filled with lies, and instead of following thier privacy policy Wikipedia will not take down his article. And because he has attempted to remove his article he has been banned from editing pages and his page has editing temporarily disabled. Wkipedia violates the privacy of millions including Brandt

List of Nu metal musical groups

Do bands like Staind, System of a Down, Tool, etc. have anything to do with nu metal? Do they ever use it?

Cauliflower

Is cauliflower nutritious? Is specifying what parts are usable POV?

List of numbers that are always odd

The number 3 was being considered as possibly being not odd. Page protection was needed to halt the heated debate. User:Wik's correction of a misspelling of hypochondriacs was re-reverted no less than 3 times. Supposedly as a means to illustrate the ludicrousness of the subject, various examples such as "the atomic numbers of gold and silver, but not their sum" and "the number of days in a year (except leap years)" were added to the list. Later in the edit war, no less than two thousand five hundred numbers of debated oddness (every second integer from 1 to 4999) were added and removed, four hundred ninety eight of them repeatedly before the edit war was solved by the article's deletion after a VfD vote.

Wikipedia:Yet more bad jokes and other deleted nonsense#Edit conflicts

The edit war on the Wikipedia:Edit conflicts page, preserved in Yet More Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense.

Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship

Wik's nominations of 9 Wikipedia:Wikicops were moved; the wikicops page itself got in a move war about a week later and ended back at Wikipedia:Administrators.

Sarah Edmonds

Wik makes a correction, giving her middle name and month of birth. This gets lost through an edit conflict, and Danny and Alexandros add a paragraph worth of content. Wik reverts. Danny reverts. Etcetera. The only objection either had with the other's edits was that it reverted their own.

Suncrest, Washington

Constant reversion of Mark Richards's "vandalism" by original creator who seemed to think it was his page. See page history and VfD discussion.

Grace Kelly and Cher

Edit wars over whether each is a gay icon.

John Byrne

A somewhat controversial comic book artist who felt there were errors in his article and so blanked almost all of the content without explaining what specifically the errors he was objecting to were. He raised the subject on his own message board and both supporters and detractors flocked to Wikipedia to join in the fight, resulting in numerous articles in blogs and other comic industry media about the ensuing conflict.

Miss Kitty Fantastico

Edit war over whether it is appropriate for the text some demons to link to the article Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet.

Micronations

Two self-proclaimed leaders of micronations in a lengthy revert war in this and other articles about the comparative value and notability of their made-up countries.

Susan Hawk

Was she in Survivor: Pulau Tiga or Survivor: Borneo? Considering both were in heavy use, one really shouldn't have precedence over the other (although Pulau Tiga was the term used for years before Jeff Probst introduced the term Borneo for the first season); in any case, the edit war between the older term and the newer term has gone on for months.

SkyOS

Fast & furious kindergarten catfight with accusations of GPL violations, advertising, lying and fanboyism.

Apple pie

Is apple pie really "all American"? This weighty issue causes a revert war, ending in a 24-hour block, two ArbCom cases, and the temporary departure of one Wikipedian.

What would Jesus do?

Should the article link to Brian Boitano or What Would Brian Boitano Do?. Should a movie title be italicized? Did something happen in the middle of the 1990's or the mid- to late-1990's? These and other probing questions were at the heart of five-day long edit war between Anthony and Wik, during which the page had to be protected twice. The campaign spread to other pages, with What Would Brian Boitano Do? surviving a VfD listing by Wik.

Charles Darwin

Is sharing a birthday with Abraham Lincoln important enough to include in the Charles Darwin article, or is it a bit of trivia that has no place in an encyclopedia? As of 4 February 2005, there has been an eight week-long revert war over a single sentence. There have been two polls on the Darwin Talk pages, one request for a debate, one WP:RFC, one WP:RFM, one WP:RFAr denied, and one recently closed RFAr. The discussions at Talk:Charles Darwin/Lincoln and LincolnArchive01, plus the arbitration pages amount to some 30,000 words, which is about the length of a short Agatha Christie novel.

Irish breakfast

What goes into an Irish breakfast; black pudding, white pudding or neither? Is the bacon boiled or fried? See the talk page for an in-depth of the various issues.

Furry

Huge edit war over whether or not the article should be re-directed to furry fandom with multiple reverts and multiple-paragraph arguments on the talk page.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Are Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader considered one character or two separate ones? Do they deserve separate listings in the "credits" section? This seemingly trivial disagreement degenerates into a full-fledged revert war, complete with allegations of vandalism, 3RR violations, aggressive edit summaries and a week long page-protection.

As a side note: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back has also been the site of an edit war over whether Ian McDiarmid should be included in the credits or not for his role in the Special Edition version.

And while we're on the subject, revert wars on RotS and other Star Wars film articles over whether or not the credit list should duplicate the official credits at the end of the film, or be edited by Wikipedians to include uncredited roles. Both sides of the war seem to feel they have the weight of policy on their side, but no one actually points to policies. Thankfully this seems to have eventually resolved itself, with an "official credits" section, and notes made afterward about uncredited roles.

André the Giant

Is he 7'1"? 7'4"? 6'10"? Was his height even consistent during his entire career? He's tall, just leave it at that.

Football World Cup

Who finished third in the 1930 World Cup? United States? Yugoslavia? With still one year to go before the next World Cup, this subject gives involved users something to pass the time.

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

Does the fact that this is not a film preclude it from being categorized as a Star Wars film? Many reverts a day.

Monty Hall problem

Is it a puzzle of probability or of game theory?

List of virgins

Whether or not Britney Spears belongs on the list.

System of a Down

Are they alternative metal, or should they be on the List of Nu metal musical groups? See the "mature" arguments at the talk page, such as YES, THEY ARE NU METAL, OK! And you know it, don't you?! This band also spawned a few more lame edit wars regarding two of its albums:

Hypnotize

Was it supposed to be called Mesmerize? Since the two are supposed to be a double album, does it really matter? Much to-ing and fro-ing over an assertion that the names of the two albums were switched around, with sources asked for but none provided.

Mezmerize

Recurring edit wars over such trivialities as the release date of the album and the chart positions of songs.

KTVX

Is adding that rival KSL-TV is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints vandalism that must be reverted on sight?

User:Jimbo Wales

Edit war over background color of various parts of user page. Jimbo himself is not involved.

Jeremy Clarkson and Talk:Jeremy_Clarkson

An ongoing edit war over whether or not a {{npov-section}} tag should be placed in the Controversy section. Is the section controversial, or is it Clarkson, or is it both? And does one matter more than the other? Repeated calls to specify exactly what is POV have gone unheeded, with one side going, "'tis!" and the other going, "'tisn't!" with equal vagueness. Meanwhile, the cleanup of the rest soldiers on...

Cosplay

Edit war over two external links[1][2], and over the existance of HTML comments that were added in an attempt to stop the war[3].

Meta Lameness

Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars ever

Edit war over which edit wars are allowed to be on this page (oh, the irony). See Recursion; see also tail recursion. Examples have included William of Orange, Her Late Majesty and this entry itself. These have also resulted in two attempts at VfD (now WP:MFD), which only demonstrated the community's support for this page's existence.

The weather in London

This page is used in several places as an example of something that shouldn't have an article. And indeed, it doesn't. Since several people made lame attempts to create it anyway (e.g. with contents "foggy") and others have inserted Template:deletedpage thus defeating the point, it's probably one of our most often deleted pages ever.